


Red Museum

by leiascully



Series: The FBI's Most Unwanted [38]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Abduction Arc (X-Files), Barbecue, Food, Gen, Restaurants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 08:02:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24347689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: Scully rarely ate barbecue.  But when Mulder suggested the local rib joint, she'd said yes.
Series: The FBI's Most Unwanted [38]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/249118
Kudos: 27





	Red Museum

Scully rarely ate barbecue. Her family, growing up on the shore, had always preferred seafood: clams the kids had dug, fish fresh from the market, lobster rolls dripping with butter. She'd learned to shuck oysters long before she'd ever learned to drive. But Delta Glen wasn't anywhere near any body of water she trusted. It was beef country for everyone but the Church of the Red Museum. When Mulder suggested the local rib joint, she'd said yes. The food in quarantine had been bland, the food at Mount Avalon no better, and before that, she'd been in the hospital. Nobody wanted to eat in the hospital. 

Barbecue, she came to appreciate as soon as they stepped through the door of the restaurant, was a visceral experience. Hunger hit her in the pit of the belly as she breathed in the aroma of slow-cooked meat; her stomach actually growled. She salivated. She couldn't remember the last time before this she'd been genuinely hungry in that deliciously anticipatory way. 

"Hey there, welcome to Clay's," said the girl at the desk. She looked like she might be Gary's classmate. The waitress moving around the place with her order pad could be her mother, or her aunt. Scully wondered if she and Mulder would have to question them later. For now, all she did when the waitress came around was smile and ask for the special: ribs and two sides. 

It was impossible to eat the ribs without getting messy. That was part of the appeal, she thought, a flashback to the days before etiquette had been invented. She had sauce on her fingers, sauce under her nails. Her skin tingled with the spices the meat had been rubbed with. Her teeth tore through the beef as if they'd been made for it. In a way, she supposed, they had. She felt fully the omnivore her ancestors had evolved to be as she tore at the ribs and forked up green beans and mac and cheese. She hadn't enjoyed a meal like this in a long time. Something inside her deeper than hunger had been satiated. She ripped into the ribs and dissected the case with him, feeling fully herself again at last.

"You know, Mulder... ribs like these, I'd say the Church of the Red Museum has its work cut out for it," she joked. 

And Mulder, as if he'd done it a thousand times, reached out with his napkin and dabbed sauce from her cheek.

Scully froze for a moment. She forgot what she'd been saying - something about the Church, the case, but the touch had short-circuited something in her. It was silly, but it satisfied her in a different way. Mulder had hardly touched her since she'd returned. They'd maneuvered around each other, leaving space for the conversations they hadn't had about her abduction. 

"Thanks," she said, and changed the subject to walk-ins. But they hadn't talked through all the possibilities when there was a fracas outside, and Mulder got up from the table. 

"Uh, he does that," Scully said to the waitress. "I'll handle the check." She cleaned her fingers with a wet wipe and handed over her Bureau card. The waitress looked indulgent.

"Honey, we all have man problems sometimes," the waitress assured her. "Hope he doesn't always leave you with the bill."

Scully smiled wanly and signed the receipt when it was brought back. She left a tip in cash on the table, more generous than she was inclined to, but it wasn't the first time she and Mulder had been mistaken for something more than they were. She was sure it wouldn't be the last. She picked up her coat and headed outside to see what he'd gotten himself into. A squabble with some teenagers, which was less improbably than she would have liked to think. Of course it was the sheriff's son. It was always the sheriff's son, or the pastor's daughter, or whatever wayward child of whichever local authority figure. 

"Kind of hard to tell the villains without a scorecard," she said, her tone as mild as she could manage.

Mulder nodded. "You know, they have peach cobbler with ice cream. I saw it on the menu. We could take it back to the motel. Watch whatever movie's on tv. Deal with all of this in the morning."

"That sounds perfect," she told him. She knew that he knew it wouldn't be the morning. They might get cobbler, but they would keep working. It was what they did, especially when children were being drugged in the woods, returning catatonic with words carved bloody into their bodies. But it was a nice story to tell herself for a few minutes, that this could be a job that fit into her life, the kind of work that stopped for a while while she had dinner and pretended to watch an edited-for-tv film, instead of a job that consumed her life, all but the moments she managed to steal back for herself. 

The peach cobbler was meltingly delicious. She savored each spoonful as she flipped through the papers again: records of testimony, photographs of brutalized young people. Mulder murmured and stuck his spoon in her styrofoam bowl. She batted him away and kept reading. She felt almost normal, with her belly full of barbecue and the familiar rustle of papers in her lap and Mulder, pacing and talking in front of her television. A vital fire had rekindled in her. It wasn't fair to be happy when people were suffering. It wasn't right. But she was, and she intended to carry on that way if she could. She ate the last of her cobbler and taunted Mulder with her empty bowl. He grinned.

"Gold star for you, Scully," he said, miming sticking something to her lapel. "You're an official member of the Empty Plate Club."

"Thanks," she said dryly. "I'm proud of myself too."


End file.
